It has been a long time since we posted on this blog. It’s no secret, we’re not trying to hide that we completely dropped the blogging ball for almost a full six months. The explanation for why we fell of the face of the blogosphere is as simple as it is inadequate: we got very busy. The last half of 2008 was a fantastic time for Pandemic Labs, the company that runs this blog, and unfortunately, when we had to start pruning tasks off of our 20 hours days, writing blog posts was one of the first things to go.
The blogorati will tell you that we have committed one of the cardinal blog marketing sins, and for the past half year we were frequently hit with pangs of new media guilt. Would our readers still be there when we got back? Would they every forgive us? Would we have to start over?
The purpose of this post, however, is not to atone for our absence, but to share some interesting things we learned about the effects (and the lack of affects) of such an interruption in a blog marketing strategy.
The Negatives
I seem to have misplaced my traffic: The most noticeable effect of our sojourn off the shores of blogland was the decrease in traffic to our site. This point is almost so basic that it need not be mentioned. New blog posts bring new traffic, therefore no new posts means no new traffic. Our site, of course, has many other sources of traffic, but the lack of traffic from fresh blog posts was certainly noticeable.
This screenshot is from our Google Analytics. The blue line is traffic from a period of time during the second half of 2008 when we weren’t blogging; the green line is traffic during an equal amount of time when we were blogging. You can clearly see the type of traffic spikes we received when new blog posts were published.
Forget me not, thou rankers of blogs: There are hundreds, if not thousands, of sites that rank blogs (Technorati, AdAge Power 150, The Big List, just to name a few.) You do not have to be blogging for long (especially if you are using your blog for marketing purposes) to develop an addiction to appearance on and upward movement in these rankings. PandemicBlog was doing well in more than a few rankings, but we have taken a hit in all of them. Examples:
- In August 2008, PandemicBlog was ranked 38th on the Junta42 Top Blogs list. Today, we are 111th. Yikes!
- In August 2008, PandemicBlog was ranked in the mid 300’s on the AdAge Power 150. Today, we are #640. Double yikes!
- In August 2008, Pandemic Blog had a Technorati Authority over 100. Today it is 44. Ouch!
The conclusion here is clear. You can’t stay ranked if you don’t post. We knew that was a danger, but we had to put immediate client business first.
Oh Pandemic Labs, you have disappointed me so: The final negative was not so much noticed as felt. As a new media marketing agency, we were keenly aware of the hypocritical message that could be interpreted by our failure to blog. As we set up blogs for clients, I couldn’t help feel a deep parental voice nagging, “Do what I say, not what I do.” On more than one occasion at various social media events around Boston, I was called out on the irony of running a social media company that couldn’t even find the time to blog. Depending on my mood, I would either docilely accept the rebuke, or respond with a point about how having so many clients that there was just too much work to do was a viable excuse for not blogging.
The Not Negatives
Notice that this section is called the “not negatives.” There are no positives to not blogging for six months…other than the added time you get in your work week.
Oldies but Goodies: As noted in point 1 above, the lack of new
blog posts during the second half of 2008 resulted in decreased site traffic. What I find most interesting is that the traffic hit was not as severe as I would have thought. The reason for this is because of the quality of the posts we already had. I am a huge proponent of the fact that “the internet never forgets.” A great post does not cease being a great post as time elapses. If you write high quality material, it will still be high quality next year, and the year after, and the year after. If you don’t believe me, pay attention to the publish dates of the posts you find in your next weeks worth of Google searches. I bet dollars to donuts that you find a bunch from 2006. PandemicBlog has a few such posts:
- Why You Shouldn’t Stumble Yourself
- The Paradox of Self-Promotion with Social Media
- Viral Marketing to Generation Why
These posts are like blue chip stocks that you buy and just hold for decades. It doesn’t matter how old these posts are, they bring in consistent, high-quality traffic every day. These posts kept our blog marketing strategy not just alive, but thriving. Throughout our five month blogging absence our blog still brought in leads and good discussion and I credit power posts like those above.
Absence makes the feed grow stronger: Ok, I admit it, that statement is not entirely accurate. But, “Absence does not necessarily make the feed lose subscribers” would have been a terrible intro line for this paragraph. The fact of the matter is that in our five months off the blog marketing wagon, we have seen no discernible drop in subscriber count. I take this as further proof of a theory I have long held and was partially influenced by the writings of DoshDosh. This theory holds that most RSS subscribers will not unsubscribe from your feed for not publishing. It may seem strange. If you subscribe to the New York Times and they stop delivering to your house, you would probably complain or cancel. But if a blogger doesn’t post for a month, I may not even notice. The absence of their feed in the mess that is my feed reader will likely pass unnoticed. I think the main reasons people unsubscribe to feeds are as follows (in this order):
- Bad Content – if you publish crap, people will stop subscribing
- Too Much Content – If you monopolize someone’s feed reader by posting 20 times per day, you might lose them.
- No Content – Every once in a while, we all do feed reader cleaning. These are the times when those “dead” feeds are likely to get weeded out.
The Conclusion
If you, like many of our clients, are undertaking a blog marketing strategy, taking large chunks of time between posts is bad. It is important to have a schedule and stick to it. It is even more important to produce quality content, not just dribble. Perhaps most important, and the reason I have written this post, is to realize that if your blog marketing strategy works, it will bring you business. That business will make your company busier. Amid the shuffle and the long days and the deadlines, please take a step back and remember that it was partly your blog that brought you to this busy-yet-awesome business state. Don’t push it into the broom closet. Here at Pandemic Labs, we are taking a bit of our medicine and charging into 2009 with our keyboards blazing. Blogging is fundamental to who we are, and we’re back.
It’s good to see you guys back! I look forward to reading you again.
Welcome back…been waiting for you.
Hey Joe and Andrew,
Thanks for the kind thoughts. Stay tuned for more posts. I think Brennan has a good one coming up next.